Anyone who doubts the enduring power of the mainstream media need look no further than the rise in Romney’s unfavorables in a recent Pew Poll. Yes, this poll is likely skewed, but the percentages are too extreme to escape the conclusion that a large number of Americans do not find Mitt “Mr. Nice Guy.” (I met him and thought he was perfectly okay — but what do I know?) Obama, on the other hand, is still considered a swell fellow.

All this although the economy has been a disaster throughout his presidency and, for the last year, probably more, he has seemed a petulant prig when confronted with the slightest criticism. Not an attractive trait.

You would think under those conditions those poll numbers would be reversed and the election polls themselves would show Romney with a gigantic lead, but no. Like a nation of ostriches, huge portions of the American public have swallowed the media/Axelrod line that Mitt Romney is a rich self-interested capitalist out of touch with the masses, whoever they are and whatever that means(it doesn’t matter as long as they vote for Obama), hell-bent on robbing from the poor to give to the rich like a reverse Robin Hood.

In other words, a large portion of the American public has effectively been brainwashed. And the brainwashers are the Democratic Party and the mainstream media. The former is quite understandable since political parties cling to power by virtually any means when threatened. But for the media it’s another matter. Why do these people persist in their views in a situation where, objectively, almost any corporation or business would have been looking for new leadership long ago? Why are they so destructive to our society and ultimately to themselves? Don’t they have children and grandchildren?

Many explanations exist for this seeming blindness; among them, and not to be ignored, is good old-fashioned habit. But I would suggest, having lived among them, particularly the Hollywood variety, for decades, two other components: fear and shame (and, yes, loathing, to extend the Hunter Thompson analogy).

But fear first and foremost.

It seems counterintuitive, but journalists are some of the most risk-averse people around. Few of them are really entrepreneurs. Despite bohemian veneers, they have little daring. They work for somebody and that somebody calls the tune. “Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one,” as the great A. J. Liebling reminded us many years ago.

Journalists fear for their jobs and their jobs are increasingly precarious. If they change their opinions, even investigate the possibility that the other side might have some reasons, quite often they are out the door. So not only do they toe the line, they are disinclined even to consider alternatives in their minds, consciously or unconsciously, because those alternatives are dangerous to their livelihood.

And now for shame. Despite what many may choose to think, journalists are not stupid. They are at least relatively educated. They have seen the same things we all have and know that the economy (the very heart of America) is failing. And they know deep down that they are responsible for some of it, because they bought and promoted Barack Obama as if he were a messiah without the slightest bit of vetting. Obama was anointed, not elected. To this day no one knows who he is, possibly even Obama himself.

And deep down these journos are embarrassed by this (who wouldn’t be?) but they can never never admit it. To do so would injure their self-image and self-respect to the level of personality disintegration.

So this shame is projected out in rage and, yes, loathing toward you, me, Mitt Romney, and anyone else who might deign to disagree with them. We are accused racists, homophobes, sexists, classists, any refugee of sixties group speak that might stick for ten minutes, even though they themselves are more likely to be those things. It is, after all, projection. Ideology is but a pretentious cover for rage.

So no wonder they behave as a shrill gang, banging metal drums like lost characters out of Gunter Grass, “Romney bad and rich! Romney bad and rich! Romney bad and rich!” ad tedium, ad nauseum, as if they were on David Axelrod’s payroll.

And in a sense they are. For to wander off the reservation is a road to penury. And who wants that now more than ever with the number of media jobs contracting?

Of course, the ones who are screwed by this song and dance are you and me — the American public. And no doubt some day the journalists themselves.

You win some and you lose some. It looks like you guys are going to lose this one. The GOP nominated a lousy candidate and he is running a lousy campaign, if you can even call it a campaign at this point. Some of the things Romney and his campaign staff have done are just plain weird, really weird.

The latest is their push back over that new Priorities USA ad featuring Joe Soptic, the Bain layoff victim who lost his family’s health insurance along with his job, depriving his wife access to the medical care that could have caught her cancer before it was too late? Here’s the link:

A Mitt Romney spokesperson offered a very, very weird counterattack Tuesday to an ad in which a laid-off steelworker blames the presumptive GOP nominee for his family losing health care: If that family had lived in Massachusetts, it would have been covered by the former governor’s universal health care law.

“To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care,” Andrea Saul, Romney’s campaign press secretary, said during an appearance on Fox News. “There are a lot of people losing their jobs and losing their health care in President [Barack] Obama’s economy.”

So, Joe Soptic and his family should have moved to Massachusetts after getting laid off from Bain? Does it get any weirder than this? Saul is saying that it makes more sense to force someone in Joe Soptic’s position to move to Massachusetts in order to get health care than it does to continue implementing Obamacare, which takes the Massachusetts model national, not to mention the fact that Romney on several occasions actually recommended that President Obama do just that (use the Mass. plan as a model for the nation).

I think your “inbreeding” charge is a case of pot calls kettle black. Honestly, how could any thinking person buy into the weirdness the Romney campaign is peddling. You have to be in seriously denial or just plain brain dead (as a result of inbreeding).

It is true that Romney never sent a tingle up the leg of us conservatives. We had a couple better candidates but your media machine in concert with your political operatives shredded them. Sealed divorce records? No problem. Need a scandal? Make one up and have a thousand talking heads repeat it until it’s true. Someone like Sarah Palin comes along? All hands on deck for total character annihilation of her and her family (and don’t spare the death threats). Luckily for you, you can always count on our side to not play dirty. Thus, we still don’t know for sure where your Kenyan was born or what box he checked on his college application or what papers he may have written while at Harvard or Columbia.
California liberals are enjoying the fruits of their labors in that state and are fleeing it just as fast as they can. Now you’ve set your sights on the rest of the country.

Well, Limbaugh went ballistic over this Romney campaign blunder, along with a host of other conservatives. But honestly, what is Romney supposed to do? He can’t exactly speak unfavorably about the prototype for the Affordable Care Act. That would be like sneaking up behind your own child and stabbing them in the back, and that’s not very nice. lol.

Cynical, How weird is it that Obama’s campaign manager has been cought on tape colluding with the superpak-and talking with this Septic cat while he was in the SP offices?
Do you need a shower? It was 7 yrs after Romney; talk about a stretch.

We can certainly debate how both campaigns have embellished the various political ads. The fact checkers, to be sure, have been all over the place and neither side gets an A for telling it like it is. However, in spite of what you say all everyone is talking about right now is how Romney stands behind his Mittenscare, even defends it as we saw today. Sounds like a brilliant stroke of political genius on the part of whoever coordinated this sequence of events.

I think Romney should defend the Mass. healthcare universal plan. It’s a great idea! That’s why President Obama copied it!

My mistake. Obamacare was about 2,700 pages long and Romneycare was about 70 pages long, so ObamaCare was closer to 40 times as long. So if Obama copied RomenyCare, what did he copy to get the other around 2,630 pages? The collective works of Joseph Stalin?

No rational person would expect it to be anything like almost 40 times as long (things don’t normally work that way – not with normal people anyway – control freaks is another matter), and YOU were the one who said Obama copied it. That’s what YOU said – I didn’t say that. You are making less and less sense all the time. Why don’t you go call the authentic Axlerod and ask him to take over for you as you are failing and failing epically.

Oh, I get it. So, my *saying* he *copied* it is tantamount to Obama himself sitting in a room with a sharpie and copying it word for word, page by page. Is that what you think you ridiculous simpleton? Get a clue.

I’m not the only one who will say it, but a lot of conservatives (check out Red State) are suggesting that this is the day the Romney campaign died.

I’m not one of those bleeding hearts who think feral cats should trapped, neutered and released. They should be trapped euthanized.

Well, seeing as how Scopic’s wife died 5 years after GST filed for bankruptcy, which was 2 years after Romney had left Bain Capital and the fact that she had her own health insurance for 2 years AFTER her husband was laid off, I think what’s weird is that the left and their friends in the press are shamelessly bald-faced lying to the public and doing it over and over and over again with no sense of responsibility to correct the record. But that’s just me.

I hate to say this. I really do. But, you are going to see the white guilt erased (polls aside) when they enter the voting booth void of anyone that could call them racist. You will never know their identities, but odds are they walk amongst you; in your church, at your grocery, fighting your fires, protecting your streets, and perhaps even in your family. I suggest buying stock in Samsonite. There is going to be a lot of packing to be done in November.

I am left wondering if, had Bain not intervened and just let the company go bust, would Joe Soptic have been able to maintain his medical insurance? Do the Romney opponents fantasize that bankrupt companies that go out of business still offer employee benefits? Did Soptic also lose his auto insurance and his homeowner’s insurance? Of course not – those are not subsidized by the government (by making the benefits tax-deductible expenses for the employer but not taxable income for employees), thus not tied to employment.

Finally, I wonder what kind of moron thinks a person is deprived of access to medical care just because he/she has lost insurance. Probably a selfish moron who thinks nothing is obtainable unless somebody else pays for it.

Any loving person would cash in his life savings, mortgage his house, work two jobs, and ask his church for assistance to get his wife medical care. Evidently Joe Soptic did not care much about his wife’s life. But the rest of us are supposed to weep for Joe. I weep for his wife who foolishly married a selfish and inconsiderate man.

I have tried to say this numerous times here, apparently without much success. Progressivism/socialism/Marxism/communism/Naziism/fascism/post-modernism, etc. are hard-core secular religions that believe in a mythical dictatorship of the enlightened. People who buy into these religions are very seldom converted. They believe, and that is it!

I agree. I’ve reasoned with and presented evidence to friends who are Obamaites and nothing penetrates, nothing registered. Their loyalty and blind faith to the man and his ideas (unexamined, uncriticized) are indeed a religion. I’ve noted also that most of them are not believers in God as Christians are, and are often hostile to some tenets of the Christian (and Jewish) faith. For example, we believe that homosexual behavior is offensive to God, as as Mr. Cathy and many others of us say, God will not be mocked. And even one friend who believes she is a follower of Christ can not get past loyalty to her homosexual friends. I guess she takes Kool-Aid for communion, I don’t know. Anyway, these impervious Obamaism believers will vote for Obama and it worries me greatly. Do they constitute a critical mass, large enough to end the United States of America?

You are wrong on this. Some of the most fervent Obama supporters are adherents of the major protestant denominations, particularly The United Church of Christ Rv. Wright’s affiliation), the Episcopalians, the Methodist and the Unitarian. They also defend Islam and demonize Christian Evangelicals.

But there is no contradiction there. The Religious Left often denies the tenets of its own faith. In my own faith, almost the entire Conservative and Reform rabbinate denies the very basis of the faith, the Revelation of the Law (all of it) at Sinai. The Conservatives are still, I think, holding to the Bible (not contradicting it regarding homosexuality), but it may not last.

You are right and so is Mr. Simon. Liberals in general are followers of a secular religion. The underlying cause is as Mr. Simon contends, an underlying self hatred at not being able to have a good relationship with God and the strength of character to make their own way in the world. Liberals want a nanny government because of their own insecurities and put down at any cost Americans who want freedom to succeed or fail on their own.

I agree that progressiveness is a political religion. I have thought the same for years myself.

~ ~ ~

I am just hoping that the Proles are fed up to the point that they will discount the propaganda and vote to punish Obama even if they dislike Romney. I will vote for him, but view him as one more mediocre establishment candidate. It is Carter/Reagan all over, but Romney is no Reagan.

I keep waiting to see evidence of the billion dollar negative advertising blitz that will wither Obama.

If there is any good news it is; it looked just as bleak or worse at this point in 1980.

I live and vote in Texas. My vote here for Gary Johnson will not, in any way, affect the overall vote for Romney in my state or overall. So far, i am happy that Romney’s campaign is attacking Obama successfully and i hope he wins (even though i refuse to vote for him). I believe that if you are a conservative in a swing state, you should hold your nose and vote Romney. Yes, i know that this sounds hypocritical…judge for yourself.

Ceteris, I agree with most every point you make. However I disagree that your vote for Gary Johnson doesn’t matter. I too live, work, and vote in Texas – and I am voting for Romney – even though I’d prefer another cadidate. I am doing so because I want to see Obama not just beaten, but beaten badly, so the policies and direction he’s taken are destroyed…

I grant each man his vote, but ask you to reconsider. Yes, Romney is imperfect, as we all are. I have learned to accept imperfect candidates. I realize that the only candidate who would favor my ideas and opinions 100% would be me and I am not enough of a narcissist to write myself in.

Even if it makes no difference in the Electoral College, the vote totals will be used to discount any Romney win. I can hear it now, only 53% voted for him, so there is no “Real” mandate for substantial change. And there are states that jury rigged their laws to give their electoral votes to the popular vote winner if he is a Democrat.

I was anti Romney in the Primaries, but I did take the pledge to support whomever the GOP nominated. He is the best horse we have in the race, and needs every shred of support the good side can muster. The only nose holding I will be doing at the polls will be because I will be the only Red voter in a flock of Blue sheep. (West Side of The People’s Republik of Madison, WI. We have a grade school named after Caesar Chavez.) He may be a RINO, but that is still miles ahead of anything the Democrats have to offer.

Wisconsin will be close this time, last time Comrade O won in a walk because of Madison and Milwaukee out voting an otherwise mostly rural Red state.

An interesting thing about most modern journalists is their propensity to “investigate” any potential story by calling up the authorities and then transcribing the official line. You can do it all over the phone. You do not need to take your fat ass off in the field and track down the actual facts. How inconvenient would that be?

And if you actually do, and it makes the powers that be pissed off at you, your sources, the government, will cease talking to you. You will be relegated to having to go out in the field to get your information, which is what any real journalists should do to begin with.

But its far easier to be a cheerleader and keep your fat ass glued to that chair in your office or cubicle. And it is no longer like the old days where you didn’t need to have a degree in Journalism to get a job as a reporter. Instead we have people who are the bottom feeders of the college ecosystem. If you need a degree and you aren’t that smart Journalism and Education are the ways to go. Almost anyone with an IQ above room temperature can get one. In essence, “credentialising” journalism has destroyed it. If only idiots pursue such degrees and only people who have such degrees can become journalists in the MSM then we end up with nothing but idiots in the MSM.

So, the MSM was foolish enough to be bamboozled into beating the drum to go to war eh?

I’m sure that explains why they decided after no WMDs were found that they had been lied to and that was enough of a reason to go back on the Bush bashing kick. I’m also pretty sure that’s the same reason why they completely turned a blind eye to the whole “oil for food” scandal at the UN.

Here we have the legitimate story of a dictator, who has had long standing sanctions against his government, giving agency officials (yep, the very people who were responsible for overseeing the programs that kept him in check) a cut of the take, if they looked the other way while he flouted those same sanctions.

WANNA TALK *FEAR*? For months, starting perhaps PRIOR to the beginning of the Primaries – YOU berated readers about how “it’s over!” and such, peddling nonsense that did less to inform than to intimidate readers about the various candidates.

OR MAYBE *SHAME*: It was YOU who went about attacking those against Romney’s proven record of statism as having “Romney Derangement Syndrome.” Yeah, like folks want to walk around being labeled like *that*.

Mr. Simon – I suppose it was inevitable, but you finally wrote a piece that I disagree with and believe to be incorrect. I believe it is sheer folly to believe any poll that does not show Romney as the clear front runner. Dear Leader is absolutely toxic outside any inner-city ghetto, 90% of the college campuses and/or Hollywood; I see very few un-black Americans that are even lukewarm to the Fidel-in-training.

I believe that just as we saw in 2010, this contest will be projected as ‘close’ by almost every credible pollster, but ultimately result in a clear (possible landslide) victory for the anti-Obama. Why? Because the pollsters are crooked and corrupt and are being paid off by the dems. I suppose they are afraid this voter ID thing is gaining traction, or the True the Vote people are going to mitigate a majority of their usual voter fraud, so they have to buy off the pollsters to try and dampen the pissed off Americans into not coming out on November 6th. Regardless, the pollsters have their agenda as well as the ‘reporters’ and I simply feel the ‘mood of the people’…..and it don’t jive with the polls saying Pol Pot on the Potomac is anything but unfavorable.

I don’t believe the polls either. People have been so harangued and demonized for expressing opposition to Obama that they are keeping their opinions to themselves. They’re going along to get along right now. If you don’t like Obama the man, you’re a racist. If you don’t like his policies, you’re a racist. It doesn’t matter why you’re opposed to Obama; you’re a racist.

I think what is going on now is exactly what went on in Wisconsin in the spring. Wisconsinites were so intimidated by the unions that they willingly signed the petitions for the recall election, but once in the privacy of the voting booth, their true feelings were made known.

And I thought it was just me.
I do know two people who are absolutely voting for o. My uncle is a relic “radical “academic. He says he is open and I try to point out the obvious but he clings to (what I think is racist thinking) of give a brother a chance, its not his fault. My sister is more base. She says her family was autoworkers so anybody who is supposedly against them are again st her family and doesn’t deserve her vote. Unfortunately both live in a purple state

If I may add to this, what I keep thinking is “This is not the seventies.” Let’s face it, this administration IS the seventies, the second term of Carter. In the seventies, we threw Carter out, but the truth is, compared to now, on the streets, people were far, far to the left of where they are now. (Also fluffier. Things like astrology had a lot more credence.) The mainstream has moved RIGHT. We’re not seeing that in polls, but it’s there. Can anyone imagine the tea party in the late seventies? No? Neither can I.

Obama is governing as if the Sov Union had never fallen, and as thought he could still sell us a Marxist paradise. He can’t, and it shows. Grant you, I’m not seeing Romney stickers, but I’m seeing “counting the days till November” and “Four and Out” type stickers and almost no Obama stickers. And I live in a very blue neighborhood.

On the polls — I wonder how many people are like us. Look, I’ll be blunt, 2004 my reaction to the vote was “they believed their own polls and didn’t manufacture enough votes” — with that in mind we lie like rugs to every pollster. o:)

The pollsters are not bought, stupid or dishonest. What they are is up a creek without a paddle.

“It has become increasingly difficult to contact potential respondents and to persuade them to participate. The percentage of households in a sample that are successfully interviewed – the response rate – has fallen dramatically. At Pew Research, the response rate of a typical telephone survey was 36% in 1997 and is just 9% today.”

I have been deluged with polling. I get 2 or 3 calls a week – I’m in Florida. I think my average time from ring to hangup is about 4 seconds. I have asked people who I know about this. They say the same.

Modern polling is all about trends. What did people do over the last 4 elections? The black swans always take them by surprise.

There have been 5 wave elections in the last 80 years – 1932, 1952, 1980, 1994 and 2010. They happen once a generation or so. 2010 was huge. I believe that a landslide is baked in the cake. Folks aren’t talking, they’re waiting in grim anticipation.

The spontaneous uprising of the Tea Party in 2009, and the results of the 2010 midterm are better indicators than any polling data. Despite what the MSM would have you believe the Tea Party has not gone away. Every step Obama has taken to force his socialist vision on America has only hardened our resolve. If this election is decided by turnout, it’s going to be a landslide for conservatives.

Thank you for your referencing the “You are what you eat”, even though the reference was not quite correct. In the case of Ludwig Feuerbach, he did seem to take the thesis somewhat literally when he expressed his doubts about a revolution in Germany because Germans eat too many potatoes–>an obvious biophysical diet that renders a “Volk” helplessly exposed to tryanny. Assuming absolute scientific truth here, I pose the question. What does Obama eat, baloney?

In written German it is clear what is meant. However, in spoken German the speaker could mean: “You eat what you are”. This interpretation offers many suggestive ideas. I will suggest none as I do not wish to be interned in a psychiatric hospital for my delicious thoughts.

Old fashioned Journalism is alive & well; The Wall Street Journal,Investors Business Daily and on the Internet! Of course the sheep went elsewhere. I refer you to any stock chart on the web.Just pull up a 2 year chart of Smith&Wesson! Thank you for reminding me about Hunter Thompson,is he dead yet? To quote Lauren Bacall in Flame over India;”Excuse me for speaking my mind but thats what its there for!” Nuf Said,(Stan Lee).

Mr Simon, you scare the shit out of me. Here it is 6:15 in the morning. Feeling pretty good about the up coming election ’cause I JUST KNOW it’s kick his ass outa here time! And then I read your article and I start worrying. I’m thinking that there will a subtle shift in opinion in the press. Perhaps by degree, maybe by chunks of direction so that by October the press will have redeemed itself. You’re not giving me a lotta hope here. Knock it off!

No, Roger’s not wrong. This MSM (and academia) worm won’t turn, just like they and academia in 1930′s Germany didn’t turn until they also went to the deathcamps. They risk, as Roger says, “personality disintegration” and can always tell themselves “it’s not that bad, really” and “but they don’t REALLY mean that . . .”.

I campaigned for Goldwater in 1964 and saw the Objectivists (libertarians) and Conservatives make the same mistake they’re making today — all lathered up about how the the country’s waking up. They got smoked, and LBJ’s ruinous Great Society steamrolled over generations of American coloreds. Be very afraid.

“…the American public have swallowed the media/Axelrod line that Mitt Romney is a rich self-interested capitalist out of touch with the masses…

Perhaps this is due more to the feature of the company I work for, which seems to be a trend with businesses in general.

My company’s “leadership” is of the same generation as Romney and instead of my seeing them as dynamic, intelligent people, I’m afraid they treat employees like crap, talk down to us at every opportunity and any criticism (even if invited) is met with harsh treatment and retribution.

As I’ve said many times in the past, I believe this to be a feature of those raised in the 60′s who went to college in the 70′s and have it in their heads, much as the uber-left-wingers, that they are somehow superior in all things and that they are entitled to respect. They somehow never learned that respect has to be earned and also maintained by displaying good character and class.

But when employees are fired and/or otherwise disciplined for minor offenses, only to have mid-level managers and even executives display the exact same behavior or worse during meetings in front of the people they JUST disciplined, there is a breakdown of trust and faith in them.

I don’t care for Mitt Romney. In many ways he seems to me, sure, “perfectly acceptable” but my cynical self tells me he is out of touch and insulated from the things that “regular people” feel and understand. This is not to say he is inhuman, as in Obama’s case; A person who is so ignorant of how others think and feel that it borders on criminal.

No, with Romney, I think he’s just been largely sheltered from any cold, cruel realities of life and yes, people can be successful and “normal” and treat others well without fully grasping the day-to-day grind that most Americans deal with. He sacrificed in college, ok, I get that. And no, I don’t expect him to have come from the earth to a place of high status. But I’d like him so much more if he had but people like that seem to be few and far between anymore. Those people who literally came up dirt poor, had an idea, worked to meet a goal, failed a time or two but were ultimately successful.

Romney comes from a generation where failure is unknown by people with his background. Partly that is certainly due the the entrenched knowledge of his parent’s generation about how to fend off living a life of drudgery and financial ruin as in Ralph Kramden. This is generally good but comes with it the fact that the parents will not allow their kids to see failure, even by their own hand. The mechanism there is because they see their kids’ failure as a reflection on themeselves and cannot bear the stigma of having a kid who “never amounted to anything”. In certain circles, this stigma is worse than death itself. Bragging rights, if you will, about “my kid is an attorney at XYZ law-firm and will be a full partner come next month”. The other social creatures in that parent’s group are agog and impressed.

But more to the point. Romney reminds me of a lot of colonels I met in the military. Groomed since their first days as a lieutenant, never seeing the grunt-work that makes the military such a fun place to be, engaged by the social groups of the command structure, recommended for staff jobs to be the exec for this high-ranker or that, given increasing responsibility as they make rank themselves, but never having to do any dirty-work.

This creates a person with an unrealistic picture of how the world works. It’s not entirely wrong but it is skewed and lacks the tactile features that most of us have with how success is obtained and the constant fight to protect it. This is not to say such people can’t be bright, personable, or even fun. But I ran into so many colonels who had no idea how things actually worked who just gave an order to “make it happen” and *poof* it was done. The colonel often then believed they were a real “mover and shaker” who “got things done” when in reality, the NCO’s and other enlisted people were running 24/7 making this thing happen and doing the logistical calculations to make it all fit, while muttering and cussing the very same colonel who, like so many before him, liked to re-invent the wheel and then claim it as his own creation.

Romney strikes me as that. Not so much “out-of-touch” as ignorant that there’s more than just what’s on the surface. That when he takes his car to the shop…it is returned to him in good-working order but not having the least bit of curiosity as to how that happened. The guy who, when his car DOES break down on the side of the road, opens the hood because…well…that’s just what you do. Not that he has any idea of what goes on in there. So the hood is open while he is on his cellphone to his motorclub to get rescued. Then, bitches because he had to get a rental car and they didn’t have any luxo-poofy Mercedes and he had to take a Lincoln while his car got repaired.

And after saying all this…I will still vote for him. Not because he will “save the nation” but because he will damage it less than Obama already has. This is where we are in our governmental system…and it’s much the same way that colonels are made in the military. The higher-ups and tenured people pick and choose who they think they want to be in their club and because they think they know better, pick people who…largely are disliked by their peers and have never really displayed any true character…but most importantly have always gone along with what the higher-ups have told him to do. That is not a leader, that is a lackey.

You got little out of what I said. It should be understood, with the limits of trying to keep my post short enough, that no, not ALL are like that but, in that age group, those who are not are also not invited to be the “leaders” in the “cool kids” group.

It’s a human trait and it’s even worse in my OWN generation. Belonging trumps everything. Again, this is not to say they don’t have individual thoughts or even some creativity but largely that creativity is curtailed by the desire to not appear extreme or confrontational. Or (*gasp*) independent.

“The mechanism there is because they see their kids’ failure as a reflection on themselves and cannot bear the stigma of having a kid who “never amounted to anything”.

The Kennedys seem to have learned to handle that stigma quite well.

That aside, the choice for a President Romney could not be more stark. He is going to be handed a mess of such magnitude that he has no choice but to either fix it or sink with it. Given that stark reality I can’t see Romney accepting eternal condemnation as a failed president. I think he knows this and his nature is to succeed. Who gives a damn if he is perceived as an east coast snob? Someone who drives with his dog on the roof and knows how to order a sandwich at the WaWa probably is more down to earth than you might imagine. Pre-WWII George Patton would likely have been condemned as an arrogant, out-of-empathy, showboating blowhard when, in fact, he apparently had an overwhelming determination to never ever be judged a loser. Ask Rommel. That is the trait that Romney may well possess and very likely does. Who cares if he is a formerly pampered jackass (if that applies) so long as he has the drive of a winner? Obama is quite the opposite. He will gladly lose the war with no regrets so long as he can be assured that history will blame the troops while judging him to be magnificent. Obama came up from nothing. What did that experience do for his character?

This right here is part of the reason I like Romney and am just mystified by Obama. It is another facet of the president’s narcissism that also shows up up in a total lack of intellectual curiosity. He just knows he’s “swell” and nothing will convince him otherwise.

I am afraid, sir, you have a poor view of Romney and the rest of us who grew up in that age. You are certainly entitled to your opinion and it is respected. However the other alternative is a dead America, to any of us who grew up here in the last 40 years. If you cannot vote for one who is like your employer than vote against the man who will destroy all employers that are not union or donators and with it, your job and mine.

Norm, I didn’t say I wasn’t going to vote for Romney. I think you only probably read a portion of what I wrote, which, admittedly is long.

But your attitude is exactly what I’m talking about. Your post is pedantic and directive in nature and I don’t need instruction on how dire the circumstances are. I avoided in my original post going on about how much I desire a tough conservative to run for president. Romney’s track record is not that of a conservative. However, he has much stronger character and far more intelligence than the current thing in the white house.

Personally, I don’t believe I’d like the man. But for lack of a better candidate, and he may pleasantly surprise me, he’s all we’ve got. Please don’t assume that I’m so close-minded as to dismiss the guy entirely. I was commenting heavily about a feature of the previous generation and your presumptions seem to bear that out.

You claim that journalists are educated – that’s just plain wrong. Few have any real knowledge of economics, fewer understand any hard science, and essentially none understand math or statistics and other than a one or two, none have founded and worked a real world business.

I agree that most journalists nowadays are uneducated, or have vomited out any sensible instruction they might have received or been exposed to. This is where I disagree with Roger. They are victims of pseudo-education, leftist junk food for the mind that strips away everything of value, and everything that aligns with truth, still caught in that adolescent mindset of infatuation with a little bit of knowledge that matches their viewpoint.
Most journalists show a complete lack of understanding of the principles and traditions that constitute Western Civilization.

If the leftist-journalist purveyors of truth had their way (or version), the pilgrims didn’t bring a Bible with them to America; the founding fathers didn’t read the Bible either, and it had no bearing whatsoever on the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution; the scriptures and any other book with moral guidelines would be expunged from history. And the goodness of the founding fathers is just a myth that conservatives cling to, because the early colonials didn’t really have courage; they were really just a bunch of greedy, slave-owning land owners, who attained what they had because of sheer luck and the drive to dominate and for no other reasons. Other past empires like Rome who have provided many archetypes were simply a bunch of imperialist thugs with a thin veneer of civilization to mask their drive for power. Nevermind the collective strength and achievements these societies displayed during certain periods of their ascension because of their collective drive and discipline, such as magnificent roads and aqua-ducts, or their sense of duty to conduct themselves with honor and to fight for their country, whether their was booty to be had or not. The left and the journalists who follow and embrace them ignore and rage against all virtue from the past or present because they don’t have any. They are absolutely ungrateful for the sacrifices that have come before them, refusing to let any of that unpleasant dissonance of truth enter their ideological bubble.

I don’t get it, why people can’t see Obama for who and what he is. Mass hypnosis, mass stupidity, or demonic possession, or all of the above. Leviathan prefers Obama. Maybe that’s why people still adore him.

Thank You for pointing this out so clearly. Ive seen it all of my life like some shadow. I could feel it but never put it in words. Mr.Romney was no ones first choice,i favored Herman Cane and Newit. But until there are fewer democrats and their pravda{stuck together like 2 dogs in heat},we must nominate Teflon men.

Last night I had a frightening experience with a lefty couple. He was retired military (my first amazement) and she was a banker. They were living in a house valued at almost a million dollars and had a $600,000 mortgage . They vehemently and enthusiastically spouted all the Dem narratives. Romney pays less in taxes than them, tax the rich because they live in America where they have all the advantages , you know like roads etc, Republicans are racist and want to suppress voter participation by insisting on I.D. and not being able to use student I.D. but using a pistol permit, they and Obama are morally superior because they care about women’s rights, the poor, the oppressed and on and on. I made a few feeble comments when I could get a word in like students can have many I.D.s from different states but a pistol permit requires the State investigate your background (this evoked a barrage of insults about gun ownership), and I said if people can get a ride to the voting booth they should be able to get a ride to pick up a free I.D. when they go grocery shopping.

I said there is no virtue in stealing from one group to give to another even if you are stealing from evil rich people (this comment really got them angry and they accused me of many vicious crimes against humanity and worst of all of being a tea party fanatic).

Anyway, ultimately they ended the conversation by giving a rant about poor Obama, how wonderful he was, caring, handsome, articulate and so oppressed by evil Republicans who nagged him about his birth certificate, accused him of being a Muslim and a socialist. They said he was their “Rock Star” and they love him. I kid you not. How frightening .

csd, this is the sort of thing I find truly frightening, Obama is bad enough but he can only serve for 8 yrs. The type you describe do their damage over a lifetime. Makes me truly wonder about their lack of intellect and what that means for our future.

Did you ask her if she would lend her own money – personally – to Solyndra or any green energy program? To Obama, personally?

Did you ask her what the net present value of the national debt, social security, public pension plans, state and local debt combined is? (Hint: The Federal portion alone is about $76 Trillion)
Link: http://www.wnd.com/2011/03/278017/

Of course, the answer to all of the questions, would be “no”. And that’s why your conversation was frightening. The cognitive dissonance among the left is staggering to behold.

These two are “comfortable” and that is all that matters to most liberals. They have no business that they may lose or foresee any possibility that they may lose employment, their home, their life savings, and see no threat to their children’s future. Willful ignorance is their way of life. Ask them what they think of the financial predicament that this nation is headed toward. Or ask them if they wish for the best for America and is it their opinion that our current administration represents sound governance that guarantees a bright future for our children. These are non-partisan questions that are only threatening to the liberal because even they recognize the shallowness and stupidity of their responses. You will not have said anything inflammatory and all you need to do is nod your head and say “so you really believe that, do you?”. Then just listen and observe (with a smile) as they dig their hole deeper. Don’t respond. If asked a question just say “I don’t know…I am just interested in your opinion”. You will have already pissed them off and you will never be really welcome in their home again. You have made them feel uncomfortable and stupid. Which is a good thing. Liberals hate discomfort. I have used this technique on my liberal relatives. It works.

Just because they have money or appear to doesn’t mean they are smart.

For the rest of the naysayers and Mr. Simon, someone needs to look into the polls and how they are constructed. There are many ways polls can be biased, no only by the questions they ask, but in the way they are asked, who is asked and how the responses are evaluated. Many polls have shown skewed results and heavy weighting by respondents towards the dems.

Do you think that if you took a poll during Hitlers time the respondents would say anything other than they were voting for Hitler? I think not.

Roger – I can’t disagree with you given the polls I’ve seen the last couple of days on Rasmussen. What I don’t understand is why Romney isn’t being more forceful. He’s been collecting a boat-load of money but he doesn’t seem to be spending it on counter ads that put O on the defensive. (One might ask, why doesn’t O unseal his college transcripts, especially at Columbia?) If Romney doesn’t get more forceful, the next four years will be very bad I think.

The money Romney’s been collecting is for the presidential campaign, and technically, he’s not the Republican’s presidential nominee yet, so he cannot spend that cash. That’s why all the major ad-buys so far have come from the super-PACs. As the incumbent, Obama and his team aren’t shackled in the same way by the campaign laws.

Once Mitt’s nominated in Tampa, he needs to start doing the same thing Obama’s been doing and blitzing the airwaves, particularly in the swing states where Team Obama has flooded shows with their ads all summer. Romney gets two upcoming resets with the swing voters — when he’s formally nominated and picks his VP choice during and in the run-up to the convention this month, and when he and Obama hold the debates in October. In-between the two, he’s got to do a better job defining himself and what he would do as president, and not via some wonkish 59-point plant that the low-interest swing voters will tune out before it’s a quarter explained.

It is illegal for Mitt Romney to spend money raised during the primary season on TV and radio ads. He must wait until the Republican convention. This gives Obama a huge current advantage. And yet, his poll numbers leave much to be desired.

I too hope that Mitt will be transformed after the convention into a cross between Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan, or just about any other two prominent Republicans who are more forceful speakers than he is, but it will not happen. Mitt is Mitt for better or worse. The Achilles’ heel of the Republican party in recent years is its inability to find a really popular candidate, somebody who can withstand all the outrageous defamations that will emminate from the left; somebody who will step into the firing line and give as good as he gets.

Then again, maybe that’s the problem. Nobody wants to suffer the assaults of the left on himself and his family, not even to be President.

Very thoughtful post. My view is that the “media” is no longer a separate entity from the Democrat far left to left.

The “media’s” sympathies have been to the far left to left for decades, but in the last 10 years or so, the “media” stopped being cheerleaders and reporters from the sidelines and have become active participants in getting Democrats elected and the far left’s policies implemented.

Possibly the “media” feel fear, but I think the “media” is beyond feeling shame.

Freedom of thought is the rarest of freedoms. The journalist being a creature of the opinions of others has less of this than most. How is one to retain the freedom of thought when your training is to report the thoughts of others. But one cannot live without thoughts of their own so the journalist adopts the opinions of those they interact with.

“When a student has formed the habit of collecting and valuing the ideas of others, rather than his own, the self becomes dwarfed from neglect and buried under the mass of borrowed thought. He may then pass examinations, but he cannot think. Distrust of self has become so deep-rooted that he instinctively looks away from himself to books and friends for ideas; and anything that he produces cannot be good, because it is not a true expression of self.”

In Obama, they saw the embodiment of all they had adopted to believe but embodied the falseness of their thoughts have been revealed much to their shame. But without depth, how does one survive once the surface is marred?

O will get the dem-down-to-the-bone vote and the preferred skin color vote and combinations thereof. But not all of the people telling pollsters they love O to pieces belong to either of these groups. Something tells me that the ‘none of the above’ types either won’t be voting in November or will vote for Romney out of an instinct for self-preservation. These kinds of people tell pollsters pretty much whatever. So, I’m confident that this is going to be one of those elections where we won’t be treated to reports of the Democratic Party’s vaunted mobile voting herd stampeding over state lines because the election won’t even be that close.

Journalists, reporters, opinion writers and TV personalities that dare deviate from the “Party Line” will be dealt with. The emperor has no clothes but you will lose your job and all you hold dear if you dare say or write it.

They do suffer from “Intellectual Incest” (Spiro Agnew) and also intellectual dishonesty.

The good news is that most of them are going the way of Newsweek. Time magazine is so thin it is diaphanous. Keep killing business and what do you do for advertisers? How is you local newspaper that relies on AP doing? What happened to all of the real estate and auto ads?

Bah, polls are not elections, and people lie in polls all the time. Remember Wisconsin. This election will have an even wider gulf between the polls and the result. Many, many people don’t want Obama back but don’t want to admit it publicly. Romney isn’t really known yet, I think most of us would be shocked by the percentage of Americans that have never even heard him give a speech. Once he speaks at the convention and has a couple of debates, Romney will come across as a modest, honest man (which he is) and if he champions his record correctly, as an effective leader. Barring an October surprise, Romney wins running away. A lot of Dems aren’t even going to bother voting this cycle.

There are a couple of things about the recent Pew poll that mean it doesn’t affect my optimism one bit.

1. It was heavily over-sampled for Democrat voters. When a polling organization pulls that crap it is no longer polling but has graduated to cheerleading.
2. The Romney ad campaign hasn’t even pulled out its big guns yet. They are spending less than ObamaRx while collecting more. That tells me there will be a media blitz the last 3 to 4 weeks. I hate to say this but the vast majority of the voting public is woefully uninformed and fickle as a one-night stand.

I do believe it will be a close election and every vote will count. The Dems will steal a few, just as they do ev every election. That just means the good guys need to keep working right up to the time the last poll closes.

Exactly right! Looking at the partisan splits, the sample is 22R/33D/38I, which is +11 D. Factoring leaners, it is +12 D. The 2008 election was +8 D, which was a Democrat high point. The 2010 midterms were evenly split, 36/36. This leads me to believe that this poll is absolute garbage.

I can’t wait to see polls that are +20 or more D, which is increasingly what they will need to be in order to show “the one” in the lead.

You would think under those conditions those poll numbers would be reversed and the election polls themselves would show Romney with a gigantic lead, but no.

This startling observation is correct, and can only be explained by the fact that opinion programming works. We know this, because the annual spend on ads is about $500 billion. Advertising is a form of opinion programming, and marketers wouldn’t keep spending this enormous amount of money if they had no evidence that it works.

Yes, Mitt is a terrible candidate, even a self-defeating one in the RINO sense of defeat, which means failing to address important subjects, and Mitt qualifies for that age old syndrome.

But there’s another thing at work here: the layering of emotive ideology atop normal get-out-the-vote campaign marketing. Think about it, what’s a better subject for tugging at a citizen’s heart strings: self-reliance, hard work and realism, or the notion that you’re being ripped off by a Romney Hood? Forget the actual facts and forget the historical record, even including the 48% fact; focus on the feelings and you begin to understand why Prez Barack Hussein could very well be an 8-year president.

1) Profit – the news standard is “if it bleeds it leads”. Leftist policies create vast swaths of misery, despair and deprivation. They’re ideal for creating ready-made “human tragedy” stories for the nightly news. Bad news sells, good news doesn’t.
2) Power – the goal of leftists is centralized power. By only covering 7-10 people the media become power brokers. Imagine how reporting from all 57 State Capitols and 1000 cities would diminish the power of a single reporter.
3) Bigotry – the media are bigots of the first order. They are elitists who believe that the serfs should know their place. A casual review of any large city shows that Blacks belong quarantined in ghettos.
4) Bigotry #2 – the media scorn “self made men” and idolize royalty. They loathe any who have risen from poverty because they believe success is in the blood, not in merit and achievement. It’s not what you know but who you know that will determine success. You didn’t build that!
5) Jealousy – journalists simply tell what others did, they don’t actually do anything. Consequently, they hate achievers with every fiber of their being. They can report on you changing a light bulb but, in real life, are destined to sit in the dark until you come along to save them.
6) Fear #2 – because journalists can’t do anything they are utterly dependent on others. They’re like welfare recipients waiting for the “magic card” to be refilled. They do nothing to earn the largesse and live in constant fear that the gravy train will end.
7) Cowardice – they boldly “speak truth to power” only if the power being spoken to has no actual power. When confronted with real power they eagerly spread the propaganda and rush to quell any who actually have the courage to “speak truth to real power”. Then they give themselves awards for their integrity and bravery.
8) High School – journalists were pathetic losers in High School and they devote their working lives to getting even. They saw themselves as the best and brightest yet couldn’t get dates with the coolest dudes or hottest chicks, thus proving that the United States is an unjust society. Yes, that makes then standard, run of the mill, leftists.

4) Bigotry #2 – the media scorn “self made men” and idolize royalty. They loathe any who have risen from poverty because they believe success is in the blood, not in merit and achievement. It’s not what you know but who you know that will determine success. You didn’t build that!

I read (or heard or saw) recently that blacks/poor people who move off the reservation, who move up and out of poverty through their own devices & under their own steam, are seen as betrayers of the lower classes.

Thus explaining the particular red hot vilification heaped upon a Clarence Thomas or an Allen West.

No, “brainwashing” only goes so far. The sad truth is that half the people in this country agree with just about everything Obama and liberalism stand for. If you do hold to the brainwashing contention, then you should blame every Republican including Reagan, not the current MSM, for failing to present a strong, sustained philosophical and political argument for conservatism. The left won, plain and simple.

I’m afraid the Left most certainly *has* won. They have successfully built a Free Shit Army, an army that is now beginning to cross the threshold of mathematical supremacy. Romney may eke out a win, but even if he does he will be the last Republican to ever sit in the White House.

The good news is that the Left’s victory will prove to be a Pyrrhic one, because the Free Shit Army is not good for much other than providing votes in exchange for other people’s money. They’re hardly the germ of a flourishing new civilization.

Do you think it’s coincidence that the Bolsheviks coined both “useful idiots” and “useless eaters”? The coalition of rabble will find that the journey from one to the other is remarkably short.

I find today’s top journalists are a lot like actors. Because of the need to fill cable TV news shows 24/7/365 many journalists who used to labor in relative anonymity have become as famous as actors. In both fields there are far more job seekers than there are positions to be filed. The people who do make it to the top tend to have left behind a lot of people with just as much talent who simply had bad luck. They didn’t get assigned to the story that went national or that film which got them a good review in the supporting role didn’t catch fire. Sometimes it is as simple as they were too clean cut looking when the trend was for ethnic types. People in both fields worry about the future because the changing technologies threatens their gravy train. Finally both top journalists and actors tend to know they are vastly overpaid for the work they do.

This combination tends to skew perceptions of what success means and what it takes to succeed. It also creates a don’t rock the boat mentality about when it comes to the conventional wisdom of the industry.

That’s good writing there. It’s the key of politics today. They do have offspring, but not as many of them, and they don’t hold them close. They reserve the right to kill them in the womb. They rob their children and grandchildren, and yours and mine, to pay for their lifestyles.

The product of the news media is not news. It’s you. They sell your eyeballs to advertisers.

There’s no interest in hard news (think city council meetings), except for one-off events. So a business model based on hard news won’t pay the day-by-day bills.

There’s one audience though that will come every day, news or no news, so long as there is narrative. That’s soap opera women. It’s a minority of women, about forty percent, but it’s a big enough group to pay the bills.

So that’s the MSM news business model audience. No story will run that loses their interest, lest they tune away. No story will run that confuses them. The same narratives that hold their interest will run forever, day after day.

The left happens to specialize in soap opera narratives, so there’s a business arrangement. The left gets their spin reported, and the MSM gets narratives to run. It’s not shame, it’s just business.

No public debate has legs that is not edited by the tastes of soap opera.

Half of the country has an IQ at, or below, 100. One hundred is not very bright and half the country is below this level. Factor in laziness, lack of proper education, maladjustment, etc., and you can easily understand why this country is in dire straits. Socialism appeals to the weak and stupid and there is no shortage of these folks.

Has the powerful media ever been this putridly vehement in their attacks — and yet been defeated? I don’t know the historical facts of this.

Perhaps with Reagan?

If O is re-elected, we’re going to sink into a darkness the likes of which we’ve never seen or known — from every direction.

Even the Zero — power-greedy, vindictive, and deceitful as he is — doesn’t understand or envision — the disasterous consequences that will surely come from the pure evil that he’s doing — and will then have a free hand to do — to this nation.

A few thoughts: As Peggy Noonan has pointed out, this election will be a rehiring decision. Does anyone really want to rehire Obama? Diehard Dems and lefties (some of whom consider him “too moderate” or “centrist”) do, undoubtedly, but does that translate into victory? Highly doubtful, even though Romney is highly problematic.

Are journalists stupid? In the sense that they’re immature, yes; they may have high IQs but they also have low emotional IQs. Like kids, socialists, academics and artists/actors/musicians/writers, magical thinking doesn’t seem so magical to them. Also, they’re limited. They’re complete ignoramuses — like O — when it comes to the economy, business, markets, creating wealth, etc. Not only do they not know about such things, they’re proud of it.

Personally, I doubt the polls that show the smears are working. I doubt the people in this country really are stupid enough to rehire O. Then again, I thought they’d come to their senses in the voting booths last time, too. But that was then; now the great fabulist O has a record, and it’s catastrophic.

Maybe if the GOP had nominated someone with some energy in 2008, things might have been different. Instead they nominated a man who liked the attention he got by running for president but who didn’t really want to BE president. Not even the thought of Barack Obama becoming president could make me vote for McCain in 2008. I’m prepared to vote for Romney this year, although it won’t mean that much. In presidential races, NJ hasn been in the Dem camp since 1992 and it’s probably going to stay in the Dem camp this year as well, Chris Christie notwithstanding.

True, the choice is pretty bad. But why should Obama — with a proven record of failure in the presidency — get another chance to do more of the same? Give someone else a chance to screw things up. The chances that he could do as badly as O are extremely low. Even you, the ultimate cynic, would have to admit that. If not, ask yourself this: Given that leftonomic is stupidnomics, why would anyone hate poor people and the unemployed enough to vote for four more years of O? Or do you, with your inside track, know that O is going to pull a Mitterrand and reverse out of ruinous leftonomics? No sign of that so far.

The only landslide will be what you will be depositing into your Depends Undergarment when President Obama, your Commander in Chief, is handily re-elected to another four year term. Romney is going to get crushed.

Everybody else seems to be offering advice to Romney, so hey, I might as well try it too.

Were I in Romney’s campaign, I’d go after all these people who really, really want to LIKE B. H. Obama II. I’d try for an ad that emphasizes how warm and comfy it seems to be a friend… and then remembers just how the President treats his friends. (He lies to them, he betrays them, he ignores them, and eventually he turns on them. This applies to both people and nations.)

How many people thought they were Obama’s friends, and were NOT eventually ignored or betrayed by him? Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett come to mind… how many others? I’d think it would be a rather short list.

It’s good to see some people wising up to the fact that Romney is a liberal fraud.

This clown did nothing to oppose Obama during the first 3 years of his term. He left it to people like Palin to take risks and spend money and effort to campaign. After a 3 year vacation during the Obama first term, he reappears, gets annointed by the Republican Party which sabotaged conservative efforts to elect representatives all through 2010 and beyond. Meanwhile, all those “Libertarians” were sucking their thumbs voting for Democrats.

He IS a rich, out of touch guy – and no, he didn’t get rich from scratch, he got cushy, high-paying jobs because of his family’s connections from the get-go as an anointed “Golden boy”, jobs for which he had no competition. What is that except “entitlement” and “aristocracy”?

Now Romney has been anointed – again – by the establishment (don’t think that hokey primary system fools THAT many people) and he’s trying to rely on Obama’s failure as a Presidency to elect him into office is a typical entitlement mentality.

He’s trying to “coast” into the Presidency without taking any stands…the Chick-fil-A affair is just another case where he gave a “No comment”. Palin meanwhile was buying Chick-Fil-A when nobody else was standing up for the restaurant.

Thankfully, Palin has had the good sense not to endorse Romney, who despises Palin (along with the rest of the Republican establishment) for getting so many conservatives elected.

In our community, everybody hates Obama. But nobody is holding their nose to vote for Romney, a liberal who has been insulting conservatives for years in Massachusetts. If Liberalism is going to fail, let it fail under its own standard.

I’ve said it before: the Republican party has alienated conservatives and nailed itself to the “moderate” (read: “liberal”) Romney, most of those “moderates” who wanted him are going to vote for Obama anyway, so all the Republicans have accomplished is to turn the base against them. It may not be the majority of the base that stays home, but I hope it’ll be enough to ensure that Romney has no chance of winning.

The base is not, nor has it ever been, Libertarian-moderate-Liberal. Though they LOVE to pretend they’re more important than they really are. I recently read that they’re supposed to be the primary force behind the Chick-Fil-A customer surge.

LOL.

You will NOT find many pot-smokers, college liberals, people for Gay marraige, or wealthy “Libertarians” like Romney going to Chick Fil A on any regular basis.

You WILL find that those people who are “concerned about free speech” are overwhelmingly middle class, generally middle aged to old-aged, often married, often very religious and overall very conservative.

And YES, they are also overwhelmingly against Gay “Marraige”.

Conservatives are the base.

You Libertarians are the fringe group.

If you want to know why Obama is neck-and-neck with Romney even after all this, it’s because of YOU and your pal Romney, not because conservatives are stupid or “brainwashed”.

While I dont agree with not voting for Romney, I share many of your sentiments.

Hopefully, we can get Romney to nominate another strong conservative judge as insurance against Kennedy and now Roberts when he gets the itch to suck up to the Leftwing Establishment.

Ginsberg isnt going to last much longer, and that Supreme Court nomination is critical. We cant have another Leftwing Jew or Wise Latina put on the court. We have to roll back much of 20th Century Leftwing jurisprudence, before we can move forward with restoring the Constitutional Republic.

The media is dominated by left wingers because journalism attracts Utopians who want to “change the world.” Change through democratic means is time-consuming, therefore Utopians are attracted to collective, government imposed action. This ultimately results in group-think and tyranny, but because they are so convinced of their moral superiority, they are blind to their hypocrisy. Self-righteousness causes them to eject and suppress any deviation from their orthodoxy, resulting in increasing ideological isolation, tending to even more corruption and extremism.

They may succeed in brainwashing large segments of the public because they still dominate major gateways to information and opinion-shaping, but that is changing. Once people are exposed to alternative information, there is a chance to open their minds. That’s why they attack Fox News, talk radio and popular conservative politicians so ferociously.

From my observation, the media discovered the technique of using polls to shape public opinion, as opposed to reflect it, during the Lewinsky scandal. If you can be convinced that large numbers of people hold a viewpoint different than your own, you may be vulnerable to doubting yourself, or at the least, feel demoralized.

To learn to write, well enough for a newspaper (sarcasm, for some of the writers in the NYT have failed to learn the trade and are comical in their efforts to write), a student will invariably attend college or university; consequently, a student will be subjected to a continuous barrage of Leftist indoctrination and propaganda while trying to learn the subtle differences between a colon and a semicolon.

During those formative years, there is an overwhelming desire to conform. Thus the relentless harangue of Leftist professors finds a vulnerable mind to indoctrinate and the pressures to fit-in with the Socialist idealism of the student body completes the indoctrination process.

Eventually the student needs a paycheck; espousing the party line and slanting writing to covertly glorify the revolution is necessary to maintain a position, if not the single most important factor by which writing is evaluated. Thus the profession is designed for the Useful Idiot; for the real writer can only betray his feelings for so long before his life loses meaning from turning out propaganda and lies for a living.

These machines help the public become more aware of the fraud being perpetrated against them, but the propagandists use them, but without the skill and clarity of those who write honestly from the heart. Obviously the Useful Idiots, that Stalin found so humorous, are legion and they probably still amuse the homicidal maniacs in their graves, but the Useful Idiots have the power to vote, and they will vote.

The duplicity of Obama or his dubious intellect will not affect their opinions; incapable of opinion, they are like automatons programed with a series of one-liners to spew forth like a garden sprinkler, when challenged. With little more intellect than a sprinkler, rarely do they offer reasoned debate, but choose to rely instead on the inane recitation and regurgitation of nonsense. Trying to reach the minds of Useful Idiots is like digging through concrete with a wooden spoon, a forlorn hope.

Our only hope is to awaken the mind of the independent. They are slowly losing confidence in the state directed media’s propaganda, but it is imperative to offer an honest and stimulating alternative. That is our responsibility, whether you write articles or commentary. The article is little more than the bait. The commentary reveals the wit of an article’s readers and unless the author can stimulate the reader and encourage the reader to engage in debate or spirited commentary, the article has missed its mark, but in a larger sense, an opportunity has been wasted, the opportunity to win over the independent with an open and fertile mind.

Do not confuse ‘freedom of the press’ with the technology which at the time of the 1st Amendment was literally a printing press. The intent was the ‘freedom of information’ or free flow of information. Press was simply synonymous at the time as an interchangeable word. Today this media is the source of that free flow of information while the institution referred to as the ‘Press’ or Main Stream Media is actually the antithesis of the free flow of information. It corrupts, distorts, manufactures, and libels to obstruct the free flow of information. If my Second Amendment rights can be restricted, their First Amendment rights likewise can be restricted.

I was listening to “Hollywood Babble-On” with Kevin “Clerks” Smith last night, and he was saying that he would vote for Obama. While not especially political, he thought that Obama inherited a mess, that he was doing okay, that he really cared about people and that he deserved four more years.

I don’t want to criticize Kevin; I admire him enough to advertise on one of his podcasts. This gives you an idea of what someone who is out of touch with what people who work for a living think.

In terms of the media and brainwashing, I was watching the Olympics and a commercial for Brian Williams and NBC News came on and one of the things that struck me was William’s comment that “these are very complicated issues that we have to explain to people”. That, in a nutshell, is the problem with the press and the comment is very revealing. THe press used to report the news and let people draw their own conclusions- they no longer do that. They feel they have to “explain” the news we are hearing and of course, they explain it through their rose colored liberal glasses, meaning that everything they “explain” is tainted by their bias. I don’t have a problem with OpEds or TV shows where its obvious that its an opinion show. But news organizations, like NBC News, shouldn’t be explaining anything- journalist report, they don’t explain.

Journalists are followers, and they have been thoroughly indoctrinated by five decades of reinforcement. It doesn’t matter if they have high iq’s or not. They can’t even imagine another mental framework for something that they have been told over and over for decades. I don’t think coercion has much to do with it, or even self-interest (which almost always is the dominant factor in any human activity. The human mind is an amazing force. There is no question whatsoever that it can persuade itself of the impossible. The msm is Case 1.

The closest match for the journalistic mindset is Jim Jones followers.

Why are they so destructive to our society and ultimately to themselves?

Because they are – in a word – delusional.

Because for the average Leftist – who doesn’t have religious faith – their political ideology is inextricably bound to their sense of self; thus, to admit that anything about that ideology is wrong is to admit that something is wrong with themselves.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Left had a choice to make: give up the utopian delusions or deny reality in order to hold onto them. They chose to deny reality. And that denial has now reached a point where they are able to simply ignore and reject the basic laws of economics and any and all objective measures of the negative effects of taxation, regulation, entitlement, etc, etc. on society. But for all their bravado, the truth is that they are terrified. Nothing they try is working. And that is why, over the next 90 days, Team Obama is going to unleash a torrent of slime on Mitt Romney the likes of which this country hasn’t seen since the Civil War era.

Because they know that much more is at stake than a simple election. They know that if Romney wins, that means that the Senate will flip to Republicans as well. And with control of all 3 houses, they know that Republicans will not only repeal ObamaCare, but even worse than that, they will dramatically reduce regulations and lower tax rates across the board. When that happens, the US economy will skyrocket…and the take-off will utterly devastate the Left…not only in the US, but the reverbations will ripple throughout Europe as well, as the Europeans will see with their own eyes that the answer to their economic stagnation is not more govt but less.

In normal times, an event like this would set the Left back 20 years, but then they would eventually recover by being able to whitewash their failures through a complicit news media, entertainment complex, and educational monopoly. But they know that those days are over: the combination of Fox News and the internet will never allow them that sort of control over the information streams ever again.

IOW: they know on visceral level that if they lose in November, they will never recover from it. A victory for Romney in November will kill the Left as a political force…not only in the US, but across Western Civilization.

Why does the Romney camp let them get away with
continuing to call it future “Tax Cuts?”
The “cut” was made a long time ago.
It’s no longer a cut — it’s a raise.
What? Is the Romney camp stupid?
This branding has to be stopped.

Is that what made this country so successful until the “Government Helped!”

Stealing?!? “Stealing” made America great!!?!!??

The “Rich” ($200,000/year) STOLE it from the poor?

Is that what he’s saying?

Actually, that IS how our current President sees this country.

From “You Didn’t Build That!” — to

“YOU STOLE THAT?”

So now — Those who’ve done well — businesspeople — are Thieves?
Thieves who “Steal” from the “Poor!”

And the Zero is going to “Steal” it back!

Zero is going to “Steal” from the thieving, $200,000/year business people, to “give” to the “poor!”

The fact is — he doesn’t even want to “steal” to “give” to the poor! —
He wants to “Steal” to “Give” to the well-connected, his Cronies and Bureaucrats …

Just like the Soviets and the Chinese. (
The “Real” “Fat Cats” sucking life out of the People!)

PRESIDENT O’ROBIN HOODLUM. PRESIDENT O’HOODLUM. PRESIDENT O’STALIN.

(Just what is it that the “Poor” have, that Romney supposedly wants to “Steal?”)

In any case, get ready …
President O’Thief wants to STEAL — from everyone …

If you’re successful, he going to STEAL your rewards …

If you’re poor, he’s going to STEAL your and your children’s opportunities for the future.

And let’s not forget, while Romney’s wife bought a $1,000 blouse for the campaign — from her OWN money –

O’HYPOCRITE THIEF’s wife STOLE $350,000/year salary as a Hospital Administrator —
which was TRIPLED IMMEDIATELY after he, as State legislator, arranged “Grants” to the Hospital –
(Which Grants helped the Hospital to TURN AWAY THE POOR!)
And Who Buys $7,000 Jackets now and
Takes Ultra-extravagant vacations —
ON THE POOR-PEOPLE’S DIME!

THE ROMNEY CAMP COULD DO SOMETHING WITH ALL OF THIS —
THE MEDIA HAS TO COVER IT IF IT COMES FROM ROMNEY’S MOUTH!

the media behavior is not hard to understand: for most liberals, the political is personal. Admitting that Obama’s work has been a failure is also admitting that everything they hold dear is wrong. That is a very hard thing for anyone to do, let alone committed ideologues.

The thing no one is talking about is why, after finally having something that can be called a record, The Obama is instead choosing to focus on his opponent. The media herd is too well-trained to following spoon-fed narratives to raise this point, but whither the alternative press?

Re-elections are, by definition, referenda on incumbents not their challengers. It’s one thing to point out your opponent’s perceived flaws but it is quite another to avoid saying anything about your accomplishments. Of course, that presumes having what most folks would consider accomplishments, so the question answers itself.

He STOLE from all of Illinois — especially the poor
… for his CRONY- REZKO
(Who is currently, or was recently, in jail for various crimes.)

R-E-Z-K-O who REALLY STOLE from the POOR at HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS in CHICAGO –

All SUPPORTED by CRONY-EMPOWERING … guess who? OBA-HOODLUM!

ROMNEY should show the photos that are on the Web —
Just check out the obscene conditions of the Housing Projects owned by the

O’Crony — REZKO —
who helped O’Crony-Phoney get elected to his State Senate …
and who O’Crony-Phony then supported to get “subsidies” —
and … then …
got “help” from REZKO for O’Crony-Phoney’s House purchase in Chicago.

“So this shame is projected out in rage and, yes, loathing toward you, me, Mitt Romney, and anyone else who might deign to disagree with them.”

It may provide them some comfort to know that their feelings are mutual. After returning from my tour in Vietnam to the usual hostile welcome afforded my colleagues in combat, I began the custom of a celebratory drink whenever I read of the death or misfortune of a member of the “Main Stream” media. I’ve seen nothing since to disabuse me of the appropriateness or enjoyment of my custom.

Romney does need to get tough because most of the american people are waaaay ahead of the journalists (that why the main stream media, print, and broadcast, are losing their audience). People are waiting to see if Romney has the stones to push back effectively. He did well overseas but he has to be equally effective here.

Brainwashed? Like Romney’s father? Nah. Their copy of the “living” Constitution no longer reads “provide for the common defense” but instead “provide for ME”. If that’s the role of government, voting Democratic makes perfect sense.

Mr. Simon’s comments shed some light on something I’ve been pondering a lot over the last few years — why are our mainstream media so in favor of big government and big spending? There’s nothing inherent about reporting current events that should give them a pro-government bias. Maybe it’s because the market isn’t doing their livelihood any favors.

Its time for some wealthy Republicans to get together and just buy one of the Big Three TV stations (ABC, CBS, NBC), fire all those connected with the news programs, and hire people who are fair and balanced. Fox News is great, but it only reaches approx 2 million people for evening programing. The big three together still reach approx 27 million for evening programing.

Also would be a good idea for a group of wealthy Republicans to purchase or start a movie studio committed to producing movies that help the culture and country rather than denigrating it all the time.

We can’t assume that most Americans pay attention to politics as many of those do who read this blog. They don’t. They get sound bites and snippets and Jon Stewart and make their voting decisions base on that alone.

I spent last Saturday on a phone bank in Columbus, Ohio calling potential voters, for the Ohio Republican party. Overwhelming number of calls said, anyone but Obama! I hope this hold true. Also, there were at least 6 black folks who are fed up with Obama, making calls. I don’t believe he has the black vote tied up this time. When the Obama money did not come through, many were disappointed.
I

That is the second reason I would like to see Col West as VP. He would peel off the black conservative vote. Lots of black conservatives. The GOP runs them off, so they have no where to go except the (D)’s. Condi would be good too. Those that don’t like her position on abortion ( such as myself) should note that it is farther right then Mitt’s.
Romney’s position on guns and gays is no where near conservative either. Looking at his record in Taxachuetts, it would be hard to find a single conservative bone in his body.

Romney is an attempt by the establishment (R)’s to re-establish themselves as first in line to steal tax dollars. Nothing more. The ONLY thing that will change Washington D.C. is the Mullahs opening a bucket of sunshine while Congress is in session. We can elect a new Congress and when the glowing stops, fill in the crater.

Good article and spot on about journalists. Even local reporting investigative journalism will continue to be an oxymoron. Even Watergate had absolutely, positively zero to do with objectivity and investigation. The second in command for the FBI was a mole and it took almost 40 years. Without website investigative journalism like PJMedia, Drudge and Lucianne how much would intelligent, logical people not restrained by cognitive dissonance be unaware of? As far as Mitt being a bad choice as a candidate as one commenter wrote. I voted for Mitt because I am intelligent and knew he creates wealth, not welfare checks. A governor that created a health care insurance system that had flaws? But did it have 2,700+ pages and 13,000+++ regulations and climbing being forced on every health care provider and patient/voter? He is not the most conservative candidate but any of us could see that a Ron Paul or a Newt Gingrich would be demonized. Mitt’s record is demonized except for the time he did not work for Bain.

Published on Aug 7, 2012 by Ben Swann Reality Check takes a look at the Republican National Committee’s attempt to keep liberty delegates who support Ron Paul from being seated at the RNC unless they vote for Mitt Romney

Here’s the problem with Romney. If you look at the unpopular Quantitative Easing, the idea is, pour money into the banks and give them preferential treatment to keep afloat. Healthy banks will then in turn start lending or investing in new economic enterprises.

We’ve done this through QE1-3. Lots of money thrown at banks who have an active interest in making more money. Are they lending to small businesses?

No.

Has this money thrown at the financial community affected unemployment?

No.

Yet the solution that Romney puts forth is to give those on the top a further tax windfall to bolster the economy. At this point the Job Creators will be sated and set about their anointed duties.

But the whole Job Creation business involves the flow of money into the very same markets we’ve been pumping greeenbacks into via QE.

So Romney’s policy is to throw even more money at rich individuals who will place money in risky job creating ventures unlike say banks who have pretty much sat on the sidelines to wait this out.

He’s just doubling down on the current policies that haven’t changed anything.

I’m no Romney fan, but his policy is clear: approve the pipeline and release federal land for drilling, hold personal taxes steady and cut taxes on businesses, stop obamacare, and curtail the regulatory stranglehold.

That’s it. None of it is even slightly related to your garbly-gook, and there is no big mystery about it either.

Until a major political leader goes after the media directly, challenges their legitimacy and makes the case for their corruption and the urgency of reform, none of this will change. Romney (or any presidential candidate) should conduct a series of speeches in scholarly settings reciting the history of free speech and the historic obligations of a media under our First Amendment and cite the preponderant case studies of broken faith and corruption leading to where we are. Only a free, ethical and objectively vigorous media can ensure our republic.

Turn the debate on its head and force the media into defending itself. Make THEM the issue.

You are right on the money, Mr. Simon. I spoke with an Obama supporter the other day who extolled his guy’s pleasant demeanor and sheer likability, vs. Romney, a caricature of a human being. You can’t talk to people like this: they know what they know and they do not want to hear anything that undercuts their assumptions.

As long as the national media is located in New York City expect more of the same. The city is 90% registered democrat (which I’m sure most are liberals or progressives), and the news presented by the media is reflective of the these numbers. This is why you always see political panels stacked with liberals due to moderates or conservatives being a rare breed in NYC.

Romney’s campaign may want to consider running an ad showing how popular Obama is in the District of Corruption. He has a 83% approval rating in DC, and it seems to be one of the few cities in the US where things are booming. Of course with all the blacks in DC the ad would most likely be considered racist, but what isn’t considered racist with the modern democrat party.

The more heinous the crime, the more embarrassing the error, the less likely people are to admit they are wrong. Charles Manson’s gang—certainly after a few years in stir—knew very well what was expected from them at their parole hearings. They could not disavow their actions because they would have to acknowledge them as wrong, and to do so would force them to realize who and what they were—murdering stooges. The media cannot disavow their role in support of Obama for much the same reasons.

I wonder, has it ever occurred to these media twits that if they stop playing sides, stop treating middle America like a bunch of inept, inbred, uneducated, mouth-breathing hicks, their ratings/readership might just go UP, and jobs would not be in so much jeopardy? Surely they can understand the reasons behind the rise of alternative media and the decline of the mainstream media, can they not? Is there anyone in the MSM that can put two and two together to reach four?

Whats all this “the sky is falling” crap? Anyone remember Wisconsin? Walker was losing by anywhere from 4-6% according to the pollsters. Anyone remember his margin of victory? It was a 9% victory for Walker. Dick Morris – a very savvy man when it comes to polling and reading the background data that comes from those polls has said repeatedly that the polls we are seeing right now are bogus. He mentioned on Hannity the other night that many of these polls are weighted to include more democrats than republican – often by as much as 20%.

Lets quit huddling around in abject fear and go out and get our guy elected – and to hell with the MSM and the democrats. Romney is all we have this go-round. Better than McCain? Maybe – maybe not – but you go to war with the weapons you have – not the ones you wished you had.

I know many liberals – many of them won’t be voting for ‘The Won’ this time – some of them will. Take heart and quit listening to the MSM who’s job it is to darken your world with the ‘certainty’ of Zero. Polls are part of that ‘certainty’. The one that counts isn’t until November 6th and the inevitability of Zero doesn’t have to be a certainty – and I’ll be doing whatever I can to make sure of it. I can’t do it alone.

So quit sniveling and get to work. Change just one person’s mind – its a start!

“a large portion of the American public has effectively been brainwashed”

That’s why I hope for a Romney victory, but expect that Obama will win.

A few election cycles ago (during the Bush/Kerry cycle, IIRC), the head of something like Editor and Publisher boasted that the press’ support of Kerry was good for 15 points in the polls. Given the close margin between Romney and Obama, I expect the press will carry Obama over the threshold.

PJM article by Janice Fiamengo “Captive Minds, Conformity …” gives a clue to the “minds” of journalists — with the following:

“C.S. Lewis wrote about the seductive pleasures of belonging in “The Inner Ring,” brilliantly highlighting the desire planted deep in the heart of every human being to be APPROVED, ACKNOWLEDGED AS “ONE OF US” by people we admire. To get into that charmed circle, Lewis warned, MANY OF US WILL ASSENT TO NEARLY ANYTHING.”

“Czeslaw Milosz – “The Captive Mind” …. the reassurances and rewards of CEDING RESPONSIBILITY FOR JUDGMENT, and the manifold reasons why an intellectual could find himself AT HOME IN CONFORMITY. Can it be that, even free of threat or compulsion, many intellectuals will choose to surrender their independence of thought?”

Brainwashing it is, and that is reason to despair. It is especially terrible to think of all the young people who voted for Obama and will vote for him again, not realizing what it means for their future. But the media continues its chant, taken right from Orwell’s Animal Farm: “Four legs good, two legs bad. Four legs good, two legs bad.” And “Remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray.” And they and their nanny state friends say about themselves,”We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare.” Forward, comrades!

For the last time, calling us “stupid” or “brainwashed” because we don’t like Romney is proof positive of WHY we won’t be voting for him. You’re just using the excuse of calling us names to try to hide the fact that we’ve ALWAYS HAD a problem with Romney. You’ve simply being trying to ignore and submerge this reality by hoping it would go away.

That’s why Romney will always hit an “invisible” ceiling, even if Obama also has a similar ceiling. I would say even the people who have resolved to vote for Romney this early in the year, don’t even like him.

Others like us don’t buy the reasoning: “If you despise the black liberal Obama, vote for the white liberal Romney.”

Sorry, no dice.

In a nutshell: Romney’s basic problem is that he’s a Gay-marriage supporting, gun-banning, universal healthcare socialist, and more, with a history of talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Take a look at his record as governor of Massachusetts alone, not the excuses or the rationalizations. He’s a fraud who talks one way then does something else entirely, like when he passed on opportunities to block Gay marriage as governor, while at the same time pretending to be against it.

He has since tried to ignore and “talk past” these criticisms by attacking Obama. But just because he has a target-rich environment, that doesn’t absolve the fact that there’s no good reason for me to vote for a white Obama. Even worse, he’ll carry out Obama’s agenda or, more likely, let Obama’s agenda survive by refusing to oppose the bureaucratic inertia, all the while claiming that he’s upholding “conservatism”.

He did the exact same thing as governor. Romney’s sorry record defines him far more revealingly than his pretty faced words ever will. If his most ardent supporters’ counter-argument is: “You’re stupid”, I’m even more convinced than I already am that Romney is exactly what I know him to be.

I agree that fear is the key to understanding why the press continues to build the facade around the president, but I think it runs a tad deeper than what you’ve said. At the root, I think it’s fear of being discovered. Fear of being exposed, not just as wrong, but willfully so. Fear of losing the trust of the people which they no longer deserve (and they know it). Ironically, the more they proceed with the patchwork facade, the more likely their fears will be realized.

The press keeps the liberal base in line; it has minimal credibility with other Americans especially conservatives who outnumber liberals.

The problem is Romney, it always has been, which is why he will – hopefully – lose. I do not relish the idea of Obama’s second term, which is why I am doing everything I can to contribute and vote for conservative candidates in the Congress, state houses etc.

If Congress is conservative, Obama can be effectively opposed just as Clinton was.

But a conservative Congress will have a MUCH harder time, opposing Romney who will help fast-track all the liberal pet agendas just as Obama has, by proxy using the Executive agencies and a compliant media who will help hide the trail. The only difference is that he’ll do it under the banner of “conservatism”.

Romney is a product of the bureaucratic system, he doesn’t have a clue how things are made or how to get things done in real life. His life is about “investment banking” which is simply to manipulate paper, giving him the authority to choose a winner and skim off the top as profit.

He is not a professional of any kind, not military, medical, engineer, nor a small business owner, truck-driver, etc. He’s lived his entire life where “knowing the right people” and “money is something comes out of a printing press or computer screen” has informed his fundamental outlook on life.

He will be a disaster, more dangerous because a lot of people won’t see him coming until its late in the game.

At least with Obama, those same people won’t have to learn the same lesson twice in 8 years.

We have a basic problem with Romney, because he embodies a basic problem that has faced the GOP for 30 years. The reason the press is so well able to portray him negatively is that the public is already _inclined_ to accept that portrayal before they even start. It’s cliche but true to say that the GOP has 3 ‘wings’, the business wing, the social conservatives, and the national sovereignty/defense wing. The dedicated liberatarians make a small free-floating fourth faction.

The trouble the GOP faces is that the social conservatives and to some degree the nationalists are still somewhat friendly to the New Deal. Many of them used to be Democrats, and left the Democratic Party after the McGovernites and other 60s liberals types became dominant within it. They often despise the Great Society, but are still sympathetic to the New Deal, and share some of the traditional populist suspicion of finance. When they came over from the Dems in the late 70s, they made the Republican Party competitive again, ending decades of permanent minority status.

The trouble is that the leadership fo the GOP is economically conservative but tends to be, at most, socially moderate. The voting base is socially conservative and economically moderate. The nationalists may be friendly to free market thinking within the country, but share a deep suspicion of the side effects of free trade with the social conservatives.

The business wing tends to be more of a ‘business’ wing than a ‘free market’ wing, as well. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on the opposite side of a number of issues from the social conservatives and the nationalists, for example.

This forces the GOP to operate around compromise deals. The social conservativs will tolerate economic conservatism in exchange for their own issues being addressed. But Romney looks to them like an economic conservative who isn’t interested in their issue, which adds up to a strike against him. Add in his background in the finance industrye, and that’s a strike against him. Fair or not, that’s the _perception_.

So he _starts out_ with 2 strikes against him, on his own side, before he even begins. The press and the Dems (which is close to being redundant) thus have the wind at their back in blackening Romney’s rep.

Romeny _must_ have quite a bit of support from the social conservatives and the nationalists to win. The math is unforgiving on that point. He can’t escape that fact. I wonder if he knows it.

You’re clearly not in the military or you’d know that the social conservatives and the defense professionals and the small business side are one and the same and at least have HUGE overlap. Few of us were Democrats in the past, you’re talking about the 60s generation which is dying out.

We’re the generation of Reagan, not Johnson and CERTAINLY not FDR.

The main wings of the Republican Party are conservative and liberal, simply put. Libertarians are the pot smokers and gay marriage who have shied away from Obama, not to say that many of them won’t still vote for Democrats.

The media, if anything, is trying to make Romney commit Sepuku by trying to convince him that he needs to be more “centrist” aka liberal by being open to Gay Marriage or ban guns.

I was actually hoping he’d do it, but then, his limp-wristed non-support support of these issues is just as effective at undermining him.

Again, it’s nobody’s fault but his own because he is exactly what we think he is.

‘You’re clearly not in the military or you’d know that the social conservatives and the defense professionals and the small business side are one and the same and at least have HUGE overlap.’

Among military personnel, that may well be true. It’s less so among the general public, as election results have demonstrated over and over. There is _some_ overlap, but the three wings remain distinct, especially the pro-business wing, which tends to be social liberal and is getting more so. That’s Romney’s wing, unfortunately.

As for FDR’s legacy, the GOP has been through this cycle repeatedly. They win an election when the the Dems overreach in their search for socialist, secularist utopia, then attempt to roll back the welfare state and their momentum collapses, because their voters are ambivalent about it. That’s just as true of the generation that grew up under Reagan as it was of all previous ones.

Note that Reagan himself understood this dichotomy. He was careful to emphasize that his opposition was primarily to the Great Society of Johnson, not the New Deal. He _had_ to do so.

It’s still true electorally, too. This dichotomy cost the GOP our chance to take control of the Senate in 2010, for just one example. For another, Bush Jr. was politically damanged more by his proposal for changes to Social Security than he was by the entire opposition to the Iraq War.

Note what happened to Kasich in Ohio. The _same voters_ who voted to oppose Obamacare by a huge majority also voted to undo his anti-union moves, in the asme election, by a large majority.

‘Few of us were Democrats in the past, you’re talking about the 60s generation which is dying out.’

The ideas pass on from generation to generation, and change far more slowly than you seem to think. The social conservatives and business conservatives are _further apart_ today than they were in 1980, because the business conservatives, at high levels, are increasingly social liberal.

‘The main wings of the Republican Party are conservative and liberal, simply put.’

I wish that were true. The problem is that is isn’t.

‘The media, if anything, is trying to make Romney commit Sepuku by trying to convince him that he needs to be more “centrist” aka liberal by being open to Gay Marriage or ban guns.’

No question. But keep in mind that he’s getting _exactly the same advice_ from large swaths of the GOP establishment, especially from the Chamber of Commerce types.

Seems that with the US voters America’s first Celebrity, Gay, Unqualified, Inefficient, Incompetent USURPER President Barry HUSSEIN Soetero Kardashian rates far higher with women that he does with men

Mmmmmm! maybe there is something in the Islamic Koranic (which claims to be the ACTUAL and UNALTERABLE word of their GOD) contention that women are inferior to and not as smart as men after all.

Don’t forget in the Koran and in Shariah Law a woman’s word is worth only half that of a man and a woman inherits half of what her brothers inherit and a ‘Raped’ woman must provide four MALE witnesses to prove rape or be deemed a slut.

There are no words to adequately describe the seriousness of this situation. Media malpractice doesn’t even come close, but it captures some of the gravity. The msm has become propoganda. And because of that face, the public is left in the dark as their perspective is manipulated by cowardly fools. New media and blogs certainly have helped conservatives, but there’s nothing like having paper after paper, magazine after magazine, television station after television station devoted to a progressive meme. If we don’t find a way – and fast – to increase the impact of our voices, we’re doomed.

For the last month, I’ve been yelling from the rooftops that Romney has to go on the attack.

Obama’s veil of lies and deceit; his Marxist core that’s based on a con game that contemptuous of the truth and every freedom loving American alive today.

Obama’s dark, Marxist wheels never stop turning as the anti Americans Obama team every day plot new ways to turn America into a shell of its former self; a nation incapable of finding it’s way home in broad daylight, much less a nation capable of saving the world from tyranny,despotism, totalitarianism or terrorism.

Yet the more I heap contumely on Obama, the mo the next I feeling like I’m trying to be heard in a hurricane.

The future of liberty I see as being at stake, and half of this nation’s likely voters seem likely to vote for Obama, the equivalent of a head football coach calling every play to help the other team win; a shameless traitor.

One possible explanation of Romney’s feeble excuse for a political campaign is his habit of hiring the same losers who screwed up McCain’s anemic excuse for a run at the Presidency.

It appears to me that all Romney’s people think they need to do is try to parry Obama’s attacks. They’re so incompetent I start to wonder if they’re on Obama’s payroll.

Obama’s people are laughing all the way to the bank. Yes, bank. Because in the end this is about not just Marxism, but fleecing the American taxpayer out of every last red cent.

I hear to attacks on the main stream media from the Romney people. I hear no attacks on Obama’s record. None on his drug taking; his sharing missile defense secrets with the Russians, his belief that American soldiers are armed with AK47 rifles; his attacks by way of the UN on the second amendment; his plan to end the home mortgage deduction; his plans for a national sales tax; his lies about attending Columbia University, and the truth that he flunked out; his refusal to expose the lies in his application to Harvard Law School, etc, etc, etc.

The Romney people have a treasure trove of attack angles capable of putting him back on his heals, but the Romney people aren’t creative enough to know how to execute them.

Barack Obama is running one of the smartest campaigns to date. Romney is constantly getting tangled in his own underwear.

Did you hear Romney’s top media person’s reply to the latest Obama ad about somebody’s wife dying of cancer.

“If she lived in Massachusetts, RomneyCare might have saved her.

Point is, the ad was full of lies, full of bold bald faced untruths.

Our nation is at a tipping point, and Mitt Romney’s communication team is tripping all over itself playing defense. It’s more than a shame.

It’s a true American tragedy. Day by day, the United States of America is dying.

First, I would like to point out that 90% of Americans don’t pay much attention to politics. They will get interested a week before the election, with most decisions being reached the weekend before polling begins. That is changing somewhat because of early voting. What doesn’t change is that most Americans consider voting a duty and a necessary evil. So the polls are senseless right now. Trend lines are valid. Right now the trend line is flat. That is because nobody cares and the Olympics.
Now that the Olympics are ending less people will grab their remote when a political ad comes on.
Second, I have to disagree about the intelligence of the members of the media. I might be biased because while an Engineering major at good ol’ cow flop U ( University of Maryland) I spent 1 semester in dorm. I had “Communications” majors all around me. My personal observation was that none of them were smart enough to poor water out of a boot with the directions written on the heel. While I’m trying to get my head around Fourier transforms, they are studying the inside of beer cans. This was before pop tops and every 5 minutes somebody would come and ask me if I had a church key. One of them had a pet Parrot. When the Parrot died, the collective average IQ declined considerably.
Don Henley in “Dirty Laundry” hit the mark dead center.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46bBWBG9r2o